Elgato Turbo.264

i get EETimes free at work:

http://www.eetimes.com/press_releases/prnewswire/showPressRelease.jhtml?articleI D=X612723&CompanyId=1&printable=true

what do you know, just as I unwrap my turbo stick I read this in EETimes.


I agree about the ipod thoughts, baseline seems perfect, but for appletv I'm not really sure anymore that its good enough.

I intended to use this stick to archive my SD eyetv captured MPEG2 movies. to future proof them.

I'm beginning to think that I wasted my money. As I said before with a SD input (MPEG2) I'm getting a max of 17FPS @ 35% processor usage on my G4 mini. And the resultant video is sometimes larger than the origonal!

example:
*******
Back to the future part III (EYETV2 captured MPEG2)
as reported by quicktime (Apple+I)
MPEG2 Muxed, 720 x 404
3056.28 kbits/sec
2.52 GB

appletv Tubo.264 encoded H264 file:
as reported by quicktime (Apple+I)
H.264 Decoder, 720 x 576, Millions AAC, Stereo (L R), 48.000 kHz
3155.47 kbits/sec
2.60 GB

Now before I get Flamed here I can see for myself WHY the file is bigger!
My point is that I seem to be gaining NOTHING apart from appletv compatibility by encoding using Turbo.264 (and of course saved encoding time).

However using FFMPEGX (or visualhub or x y z......) you achieve a higher quality video (i.e. better picture quality at a lower bit rate) and thus a smaller file size but at the price of encoding speed/time.

I would have to repeat what I have read in many online reviews, for purely quick appletv/ipod compatible file generation... watch.... then throw away.... then its probably the way to go.

However for a generic H264 rendering tool (which is what I bourght it for) I would say the I am dissapointed.

I believe it is good at what it is advertised as doing "Turbocharged exports to your IPOD and appletv". However I am dissapointed at how its performing for the way I am using it.

Interestingly I seem to be loosing file space (in my example), loosing picture quality, and taking 17FPS worth of time to achieve this.

For IPOD, it gets the thumbs up from me.
For appletv........ I'd prefer to stay with my MPEG2 (smaller better picture) file.
shame it isn't supoprted unless you start to hack the appletv software and use something like VLC.


Baseline.. tut tut tut, must remember to read specs before I get the credit card out in a frenzy!

Steve

I also forgot to mention that sometimes the T.264 app seems to produce a mp4 file thats only 80meg or so in size, yet it thinks its finished encoding the 3Gig source MPEG2 file. 😟

Strange eh? the inpu file plays ok, the mp4 plays ok up to the point where T.264 gave up.....

needs investigating, I've seen it on 2/10 files I have encoded using T.264 set to appletv setting.

Steve

Thanks for the link to the EETimes piece. A few observations:

It claims (as does Elgato literature) that the Turbo delivers "800 x 600 high-quality video." I'm not sure how this fits in with the specs of the chip, as this is clearly higher than D1 resolution.

The CEO of Elgato claims conversion times of about 20 minutes for a two hour MPEG-2 movie. This doesn't seem to match conversion times reported here, although this figure may be only for MPEG-2 files written to a hard drive by Elgato products. Can anyone confirm this kind of performance for this application?

More insight on H.264 encoding in general & how the chip does it in particular can be found in another EETimes piece: EETimes.com - Video codec is a study in power. Over a thousand possible encoder modes per macroblock? Yikes! No wonder multipass encoding takes so much computational power!

This Mobilygen PDF touts the chip's compatibility with Video iPods, but notably lacking is mention of Apple TV's. It also mentions production quantity chip costs of about $10. For comparison, full featured hardware encoder chips just now reaching the market (& capable of the even more computationally intensive "High" encoding profile) are about 8 times its cost.

I received a few different Beta Version of the software, the last elgato sent was beta15. I was having a stutter issue on files that has cleared itself up. I know for Widescreen vids and movies the software s encoding at 853x480, so it's anamorphically encoding and it looks pretty decent. The Main differences in the beta they've sent is that it looks like the original was encoding around 200kbps and the new app is around 2700kbps this is the Apple TV profile. Files are rather large, macroblocking is a bit better, but depends on the file. My Mac Mini PPC gets about 22fps, if I disconnect all my USB drives I can get 24fps, not worth the effort for 2fps. Still compared to the 4fps I get with Handbrake without the Stick I guess I'll live with the Shortcomings

it seems that the turbo app (and quicktime using the turbo options) can be picky about what resolution video can be encoded.

e.g. MPEG2 Muxed, 544 x 306 video seems to stop at a random place during the encoding process reporting that the job is done.

bearing in mind that ALL my MPEG2 is captured from EYETV2.4 I'm not overly impressed.

This i have observed on both appletv and IPOD settings


Steve

I have been in talks with elagto and it seems that they have had problems reported from several people about export of MPEG2 in the resoluton I am having problems with.

All I have been told is that it is being looked into and they will address it in the next T.264 app update.

Just to add, I have seen the probelm from EYETV export as well, today I noticed that a few of my exports had jumped to the end of the progress bar nd failed (no export file was present).

so its not only a flawed idea for my appletv exports, but it also doesn't work properly!

back to FFMPEGX for me.......... zzzzzzz

Steve

Took the plunge and got one yesterday.

So far quite underwhelmed too.

I haven't managed to successfully convert anything yet.

I started with the supplied version 1.0 software and gave it an mpeg-2 stream of a programme recorded on my PVR.

Started off fine, but it hung about 20 mins into a 59 min programme with 60% CPU usage - had to force a quit.

Tried again several times and it just 'finished' at random points without completing the task - as you say the partly converted movie will play until the point it prematurely 'finished' encoding - 12 secs of an hour programme was worst case, but it's useless unless you can convert the whole programme. This was with 768x576 material from a UK freeview box.

Downloaded the software update, but same issues again.

Tried some stuff recorded from my elgato EyeTv - same problem.

Thought the stick might not be happy on a USB2 hub, so disconnected all my USB hubs/devices apart from keyboard/mouse and the stick. Got frame rates up to 30-31fps in so doing (up from mid 20's), but the premature finishes persist.

Will do some more testing today, but if it doesn't do what it says on the tin it's of no use to me.

AC

I have been in talks with elagto and it seems that
they have had problems reported from several people
about export of MPEG2 in the resoluton I am having
problems with.

All I have been told is that it is being looked into
and they will address it in the next T.264 app
update.

Just to add, I have seen the probelm from EYETV
export as well, today I noticed that a few of my
exports had jumped to the end of the progress bar nd
failed (no export file was present).

so its not only a flawed idea for my appletv exports,
but it also doesn't work properly!

back to FFMPEGX for me.......... zzzzzzz

Steve

Elgato's customer support is so responsive, that I doubt a user forum would be any more helpful. I think this stick is excellent. On my 2002 G4, H.264 encoding was a pipe dream until now.

I had problems with v1 and 1.01 of the software. I sent them a note, and they sent me a link [hours later!] to the beta version which works flawlessly.

Regarding performance, I was amazed to see my Heroes episodes transcoding at 25 FPS--on a G4 933!

gordymac

You're quite right about Elgato support.

They seem very responsive and like you I was e-mailed a reply within a few hours, again with a link to a beta of the next release which I'll try later today.

AC

hiya all -

it was working fine now it tells me

No Turbo.264 device found

Please plug in your Turbo.264 device and try again

i have switched usb ports, repaired permissions and restarted! it works on my laptop so it's not faulty

any ideas?

dc/lockerbie/uk

Have you tried some other devices on those USB ports?

hiya - yeah, it's working again now but i have had massive problems since 10.4.10 update

the mouse has been working/not working - same with turbo, ipod etc

intermittant faults - but faults all the same

again - help is always appreciated

dc

Have you contacted Elgato? I have had no issues since the update.

Won't get the chance to use the TurboStick, since I have a G4 iMac with USB 1.1 only... and that machine encodes H.264 like mud, so I've actually found it was worthwhile to go buy a dirt-cheap Celeron D Windows machine and any AVIs I want to code for AppleTV, I ship them downstairs to QuickTime Pro on Windows, do the encode there at about five times the frame rate that my G4 can do, then send it back upstairs for the iMac to sync to the aTV.